


build a quilt from all who have loved me

by Rivran



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Humor, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Memory Loss, Misunderstandings, Post-Canon, Temporary Amnesia, i just really love uncommon forms of punctuation ok, overuse of commas, overuse of em dashes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:29:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27796186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rivran/pseuds/Rivran
Summary: His fingers searched for something in the jacket pocket, but they closed around nothing but lint. Obviously there was nothing in his pockets. Why would there be? He didn’t own car keys, and his mobile lived in the same pocket dimension as his wings. The phone was really just entertainment, too. The contact list was empty. Who would he talk to, anyway?or, Crowley and Aziraphale forget some important things after the Unpocalypse.title from Clean Slated State by The Altogether
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	build a quilt from all who have loved me

**Author's Note:**

> obviously I always recommend the songs that I steal my titles from, but this one seriously fits this fic SO WELL. also the altogether makes great music and you should go listen to them

Crawley glared at his kitchen cabinet. For a moment, he expected to find a mug with angel wing handles among his collection of black coffee cups. He blinked and the mental image disappeared. Why would he even think that? _Like I would want anything angelic in my house_ , he thought derisively. He just wanted a cup of coffee, for Satan’s sake. One sleek black cup came down from the shelf. He filled it with coffee, absently thinking about the strangeness of his kitchen’s organization. Everywhere he looked, there were odd gaps where it looked like something ought to be - as if someone had come in the middle of the night and taken half his stuff away. But everything he normally used was still there, and everything else in the kitchen was mostly there for the aesthetic.

It was all completely ordinary, but it still set off the tiniest voice in his mind. It screamed SOMETHING IS DESPERATELY WRONG. Unfortunately for the voice, it sounded pretty much like every _other_ inner voice Crawley had been repressing since he delivered the Antichrist. Well, not _delivered_ delivered, but… handed it over. A vague sense of discomfort filled him at the thought. Almost like déjà vu – but the memory he was thinking of was certainly unpleasant enough to cause the feeling. He had been riotously drunk with – someone, he couldn’t remember who, but he did remember bristling at all the screaming. He just had to go and put a stop to it. Nobody had to know he had helped the baby along with a couple well-placed miracles.

Crawley snorted into his drink that was more milk than coffee at this point. Who was he, reminiscing about three-thousand-year-old memories? There were temptations to do, minor inconveniences to cause. He snapped his fingers, sending the empty mug back into the cupboard to clean itself. With another thought, his sleeping clothes turned themselves into his usual shirt, trousers, and jacket. His fingers searched for something in the jacket pocket, but they closed around nothing but lint.

Obviously there was nothing in his pockets. Why would there be? He didn’t own car keys, and his mobile lived in the same pocket dimension as his wings. The phone was really just entertainment, too. The contact list was empty. Who would he talk to, anyway?

Crawley shrugged off the weird feeling and walked out. Temptations, inconveniences, etc. Busy day of demoning ahead, and all that.

Aziraphale had had a rather normal morning, all things considered. He hadn’t meant to spend all night reading, but once you rediscover a volume you thought you lost, it’s just such a shame to leave it without flipping through. _And it really was a very good book_ , he thought, _and so were the next two books in the series_. He hummed a little tune that had been stuck in his head while he made tea.

He stopped in the middle of what would have been the chorus, if he could actually remember the words. Two identical mugs sat on the counter. He hadn’t even been aware he was making two cups of tea.

He looked at the phone. It didn’t respond, too busy being an inanimate object. Was he expecting company? No, he would have remembered. He never had company, anyway, so it didn’t matter.

Aziraphale shook his head. There was no use contemplating his strange slip of the mind when there was work to be done in the shop. The door sign flipped itself to “Open” with one glance. He busied himself, mostly just moving books around into different stacks. Sometimes, he shelved one back in its assigned place. Occasionally, he put something deliberately in the wrong spot. Can’t make it _too_ easy to buy his books, of course.

The work felt good, physically, but his mind was hardly engaged. His thoughts kept straying back to the strange tea thing that morning. Surely he should have noticed himself making a whole extra cup of tea. And he was about to make it with milk, too. He never had milk in his tea. But the carton was in the fridge, so clearly somebody important had been over recently. Who was important enough to leave a half-drunk carton of milk in his refrigerator?

He focused, trying to remember who he knew that would fit the description. His mind hit a blank spot.

“How very odd,” he said aloud, sitting at his desk.

Crawley squinted at the sign above the dingy door. Something was bizarrely familiar about the little bookshop. The name A.Z. Fell may not have rung a bell, but the door had no such reservations. It jingled happily as he walked inside.

“Ah, hello,” called a voice from farther inside. “Be right with you.”

He took a moment to look around the shop. Stacks of books filled the already-slim gaps between shelves. Every available surface was covered with books and trinkets and the sort of things Crawley could only describe as knick-knacks.

The whole place had a _feeling_ to it. It hung heavy in the air. Crawley’s skin felt like it fit wrong, and some long-buried instinct was screaming at him to RUN.

But at the same time, it felt like a warm patch of sunlight on a plush carpet. It was almost ridiculously inviting. His concentration was broken when a man walked around the corner and awkwardly cleared his throat. The man was dressed like he had just stepped a century forward in time. The sun shone through his hair like a halo. For half a second, Crawley almost thought – _no, can’t be_. He did look familiar, though, so Crowley set to sifting through his mental contact list while he looked around the shop.

“Can I help you find anything?” said the man.

“Nah,” said Crawley. “Just, yknow, looking.” He waved a hand vaguely at the shelves. “Probably not gonna buy anything,” he added, since that usually caused at least a little annoyance.

The man lit up. “Oh, lovely! In that case,” he said, “you can browse as long as you like.”

Somehow, and Crawley really had no idea how he had got there, they ended up sitting and talking in the shop’s back room.

“I don’t really read much, normally, but I do like the ones with pictures. Much easier to read, you know.” He gestured to the book sitting open in his lap.

“The _Extremely Big Book of Astronomy_ is hardly a picture book, my dear boy,” tutted the bookshop owner.

 _I really should figure out what his name is_ , Crawley thought. “Yeah, well. I used to have one just like this,” he said, flipping through the book. The pages were slightly rumpled, and the cover didn’t close quite as tightly as it should have. Crawley didn’t have to be an angel to know this was a well-loved copy. “Oh, beautiful nebulas,” he said idly. _I helped build that one_ , he didn’t say. “There’s got to be a better photo than this, though.”

“Right,” said the angel absently. “Oh, I’m so sorry about my manners. It’s just that you remind me of someone I used to know, and I can’t quite place why.”

“S’alright,” he said easily. “You seem familiar too, now that I think about it.” He reached into the nothingness inside his jacket pocket to retrieve his phone. Instead, something metallic and slightly pointy bumped into his hand. He lifted it out into reality.

Three keys and a single charm dangled from a silver key ring. One key obviously belonged to his flat, being the same color as the bronze doorknobs he was always crashing a hip into. He vaguely recognised the second key. Its only identifying marks were the letters BS stamped into the metal. An enamel snake glared at him from the keychain. He knew that snake. It had been a gift, from – from –

“Aziraphale!” he said, turning to face him. “ _Angel_. Of course I know you.”

“Know me?” he said faintly. He didn’t look nearly as concerned as he should have been. For all he knew, Crawley was a complete stranger that he had only met less than an hour ago.

The feeling of his memories returning was intoxicating. Blind spots he hadn’t even known about were filling themselves in with details he couldn’t believe he’d forgot. _Like your car_ , reminded a voice from the back of his head. Crawley realised what the third key was. The third key, of course, belonged to a classic car. A Bentley, from the look of the logo.

 _The_ Bentley.

How could he have forgotten the Bentley? More memories came back to him. They clicked neatly into their places like the seatbelts Aziraphale always insisted on using.

“Yes! We stopped Armageddon, just last week! Us and Adam, that was the, erm, Antichrist, and you possessed that fortune-teller woman after you got discorporated. Remember? And,” Crawley searched for the thought that had flickered across his mind. “There was something else. Bless it, I forgot again.”

“Your name,” blurted the angel. “It’s Crowley.”

He let the new vowel settle itself in his name, rolling the A around his mouth until it smoothed itself into an O. The freshly reminted Crowley smiled. Even a happy grin still looked a little evil on his face. “That feels better.” The smile faded into a scowl as he realised what had happened. “They took my name! Those bastards. What, my memories weren’t enough, so they took my name, too?” He rose abruptly from the sofa. The keys clinked in his clenched fist. “And what did they do to my _car?”_

“Oh, my dear boy.” The words brought even more memories to the surface. He remembered the argument they’d had at the bandstand.

He turned around on his heel. “Six thousand years,” he hissed. “Six _thousand_ years, just – gone. Like it was nothing. I could kill them.”

“Please don’t,” Aziraphale said quickly. “You know, I was quite convinced I had to open the shop, even though I didn’t want to. Isn’t that strange?”

Crowley rolled his eyes at the blatant subject change, but he allowed it anyway.

Aziraphale pursed his lips. “You know what else is strange,” he said, a little slower. “I know you. I know that I know you. But I have all these blank spots where I suspect you ought to be.

“There’s the bastard I know,” said Crowley, and collapsed himself onto the sofa. “What first, angel?”

“There was that time in – “

“Paris, yes, you nearly got your head chopped off – “

“And the church, with the bombs – “

“– another rescue, my feet were burning for days – “

“The Spanish Inquisition, I came and dragged you out of that pub – “

“Wasn’t a pub, those didn’t exist in Spain – “

“– quiet, dear, there was the Salem trials too – “

“– bloody Hell, angel, you promised me not to bring that up again – “

“Yes, well, I am, so deal with it – “

“– I’m fireproof, it would have been fine –”

“– and a good thing you are, or else Armageddon – “

“– your trial – “

“– the holy water – “

“– you saved my life,” Crowley finished softly. “All of it, you know? Not just a discorporation.”

Aziraphale stared at him. The rush of remembering was slowly fading to a pleasant buzz. “Yes,” he said, blinking a little more than necessary for an immortal being. “I suppose I did. You saved me from destruction, too, though.”

“Yeah, well,” Crowley said, suddenly uncomfortable. “Don’t mention it. I’m not – I mean, it’s not ‘cause I’m nice, or anything. Obviously.”

“Oh, my dear,” he said, beaming at him. The look of joy did something weird to Crowley’s insides. Human bodies were really so confusing, and he had only just remembered how to work his.

“I’m glad I remembered you,” he blurted out. _Where the fuck did that come from?_ “I mean, it was only less than a day, but…” He trailed off.

“Still much too long to not know you,” Aziraphale finished his sentence for him.

“I – er – hngk – yeah,” Crowley managed.

The angel said nothing; he just rose from his place in the armchair across the room. He took the seat next to Crowley and took his hand.

Crowley’s mind sputtered to a halt like a cheap go-kart running out of gas.

_Aziraphale. Was holding. His hand._

“Oh, so sorry, dear,” he said, without letting go of his hand. “I assumed – well, perhaps I was wrong, but I didn’t think so – but I assumed you might like this. I can stop if you want me to.”

“No,” Crowley said as soon as his mind could form words again. “No, this is – s’good, angel.”

“Good,” Aziraphale said. “Because I’ve been thinking, you see, after the whole business with Armageddon. And today’s events only proved my point even further.” He took a deep breath. Crowley faintly registered that his hand was being squeezed slightly harder. “I have come to realise that I love you, Crowley. Quite a lot. And I have also realised that I cannot bear the thought of living without you. You must forgive me, my dear,” he said, finally turning to face Crowley.

“Me?” Crowley choked.

“I know, I’m so sorry. I understand you don’t feel the same, of course, but well – it seemed like something you might want to know.” He moved to get up, but Crowley pulled him back down.

“No, wait, angel,” he said desperately. “Wait. Please.”

Aziraphale looked at him. Tears glittered in the corners of his eyes.

 _Oh, fuck. Okay._ “What makes you think I don’t love you?”

“Really,” he tried to huff. “Please don’t make me explain it. Even you aren’t that cruel.”

“I’m not trying to – come on, angel, you know I would never hurt you.”

“You’re a demon, Crowley. It’s what you do. And,” he said shakily, “demons can’t love. Everyone knows that.”

“You really believe that?” This time, Crowley was the one who sounded hurt. _This is a right mess, isn’t it?_ “Angel, _Aziraphale_ , look at me,” he pleaded. He took off his glasses. “I love you. Look at me and try and tell me I don’t.”

“That’s different. I’m _in love_ with you. Romantically.”

“Yes,” Crowley breathed. “I know, angel, trust me. Look, you can sense love, right?”

Aziraphale nodded, slowly, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Look at me,” he said softly. “I love you. So much. So much that it feels like it might kill me, sometimes.” He searched the angel’s face for any sign that he understood. “Please, angel, can’t you feel it?”

Aziraphale nodded again. He closed his eyes and clutched Crowley’s hand even tighter.

_What I wouldn’t give to know what he’s thinking right now._

He looked at him, finally, with a gentle smile on his face. “Oh, dearest,” he said. “I don’t know how I ever missed it before.”

Crowley felt himself sink into the couch with relief. “Thank Go- somebody, I’m glad that worked.” He looked over at his angel. “If that didn’t work, I was going to have to switch to my backup plan. And I didn’t really have one.”

“Well,” Aziraphale said, smiling. “What were you thinking?”

“I, uh, I was thinking I could kiss you, maybe?” Crowley found himself blushing.

“That sounds lovely.”

It was anybody’s guess who leaned in first, but nevertheless, they were kissing. Crowley’s mind exploded. Aziraphale was holding his hand, and he loved him, and he was kissing him. He was _kissing Aziraphale!_ Kissing! Touching mouths!

_He loves me!_

“Hngh,” Crowley said when they finally broke apart.

“I love you, too,” Aziraphale said, the bastard.

Crowley pulled him back in.

_Meanwhile, yesterday…_

“This blows,” complained the imp who was breaking into Crowley’s flat.

“Shut it,” hissed his partner. “D’you want the traitor to hear us?”

“Boss said he’d be dead asleep for a bit, we’re fine,” scoffed the first one. “Dunno how they know that, though.”

“Probably something to do with all the shit we’re supposed to be stealing?”

“Oh, right.”

They gathered up everything in the flat that looked even vaguely angelic.

“Good work,” declared the first one.

His partner cuffed him across the ear. “Don’t say that, asshole.”

“Dickhead.” He elbowed him back.

“Wanker.”

“Fuckshit.”

“Ooh,” he said appreciatively. “I’ll have to use that.”

“Right. Back to Hell, then?”

“After you.”

**Author's Note:**

> i watched miles maitland's final scene while i wrote the confession, for the record, and i think the sheer emotion in michael sheen's face might have killed me 
> 
> anyway, it is legally impossible for me to end a fic without saying thank you all so much for reading!! i thrive on yalls comments, so please do let me know what you think. it's always lovely :D 
> 
> p.s. i haven't forgotten about the social media misadventures series! that's still going, of course. i just got the idea for this fic and it wouldn't let me go until i wrote it out haha


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